Midwifery students’ conceptions of worst imaginable pain

BackgroundThe Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) is one of the most widely used pain assessment scales in clinical practice and research. However, the VAS is used less frequently in midwifery than in other clinical contexts. The issue of how people interpret the meaning of the VAS endpoints (i.e. no pain and worst imaginable pain) has been discussed. The aim of this study was to explore midwifery students’ conceptions of ‘worst imaginable pain’.MethodsA sample of 230 midwifery students at seven universities in Sweden responded to an open-ended question: ‘What is the worst imaginable pain for you?’ This open-ended question is a part of a larger study. Their responses underwent manifest content analysis.ResultsAnalysis of the midwifery students’ responses to the open-ended question revealed five categories with 24 sub-categories. The categories were Overwhelming pain, Condition-related pain, Accidents, Inflicted pain and Psychological suffering.ConclusionsThe midwifery students’ conceptions of ‘worst imaginable pain’ are complex, elusive and diverse.